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China has rejected to join nuclear talks with the United States and Russia following Donald Trump’s hopes for trilateral disarmament negotiations between the globe’s major atomic powers. The U.S president said he and Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of a new accord limiting nuclear arms. Trump said the accord could eventually include China. But Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said, “China opposes any country talking out of turn about China on the issue of arms control, and will not take part in any trilateral negotiations on a nuclear disarmament agreement”.

Geng said his country’s nuclear forces were at the lowest level of its national security needs and they couldn’t be compared to the U.S and Russia. He added that it was up to the U.S and Russia to further reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles before the participation of other countries. Trump claimed China had felt very strongly during trade talks regarding joining the U.S and Russia in limiting nuclear weapons. He said last Friday, “So I think we’re going to probably start up something very shortly between Russia and ourselves may be to start off, and I think China will be added down the road. We’ll be talking about non-proliferation, we’ll be talking about a nuclear deal of some kind, and I think it’ll be a very comprehensive one”.

The INF treaty was the only U.S-Russia arms-control pact limiting deployed strategic nuclear weapons expires in February 2021 but can be extended for 5 years if both sides agree. Arms-control advocates have warned that without the agreement it could be harder for each side to gauge each other’s intentions. The treaty required the 2 nuclear superpowers to cut their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades. It also includes extensive transparency measures requiring each side to allow the other to carry out 10 inspections of strategic nuclear bases each year, give 48 hours notice before new missiles covered by the treaty leave their factories and provide notifications before ballistic missile launches.